Continents/Countries

"Kanchanaburi War Cemetery is the main prisoner-of-war cemetery for victims of Japanese captivity during the construction of the Burma Railway. The cemetery contains 6,982 graves of British, Australian, and Dutch prisoners of war, of which 6,858 have been identified."

Then we continued north, where we passed through:

"Hellfire Pass is the name of a stretch of the former Burma Railway ("Death Railway") that was built by forced labor during World War II. The railway line, including Hellfire Pass, was built by over 250,000 civilians from Southeast Asia and 12,000 Allied soldiers. The pass is known for its harsh conditions and the high death toll of workers during construction. It was named Hellfire Pass because the sight of emaciated prisoners working with burning torches resembled scenes from hell."

A very local train took us south, to the site of today's steel structure of the post-war bridge.

"The Bridge on the River Kwai is the famous railway bridge in Kanchanaburi, built by Japan during World War II as part of the infamous Death Railway (Burma Railway), a strategic line to Myanmar (Burma). Brutal forced labor was performed there (prisoners of war, civilians of Asian descent). The bridge owes its name to the mass casualties of disease, starvation, and ill-treatment. Remnants of the railway and monuments commemorate its tragic history to this day."

The all-day (12-hour) trip proved to be a physical challenge, as walking in the blazing sun (35+) and climbing various (not very high) elevations was simply exhausting.

This gave us an idea of what the ordeal of the prisoners might have been like, carving a pass in the solid rock, armed with a sledgehammer and a hand-held dynamite drill!

*Death Railway map by User: W.wolny - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=167762